


Youth Is Wasted On The Young

by renegadekarma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 2/3 of the team gets turned into babies, Coulson changes diapers, Coulvary - Freeform, F/M, FitzSimmons - Freeform, Fluff, Fun Times Ensue, Gen, May has to give "The Talk", Philinda - Freeform, Philinda attempt to cook, Pre-HYDRA Reveal, Skyeward - Freeform, fun stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1607558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renegadekarma/pseuds/renegadekarma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a mission to track down an 084 goes horribly wrong, Ward, Skye, and FitzSimmons are all turned into infants.</p><p>Meanwhile, Fury assigns May and Coulson on an undercover mission in Atlanta where they are forced to act as a married couple with four infants while spying on their Centipede director of a neighbor.</p><p>Fun times ensue... well, except for changing diapers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Regression

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to end up being a multi-chapter fic. It's set a bit AU or pre-HYDRA, and it's a lot of fluffy fun. Enjoy!

Grant Ward ducked low behind a trash can, pressing the communications speaker in his ear. “Target’s been acquired,” he murmured.

From a floor above them in the mall, Coulson, who’d been eating an ice cream with his ‘daughter’ Skye and ‘wife’ May, laughed at something funny that May had presumably said before replying. “Don’t engage. Make sure he’s got the bag with him first.”

FitzSimmons were laying in wait outside the mall, just beyond the doors that Coulson could see from the edge of the mall. The earpiece crackled in his ear, “Sir, they’re threatening to tow us if we’re not out of the fifteen minute parking area in another three minutes,” Simmons’s English voice told him hesitantly.

“Just another minute,” Coulson murmured back in reply, smiling at Skye, who’d gotten ice cream in her nose. She smiled back before her dark eyes turned swiftly to the side and back, and Coulson lazily turned himself around in the direction that she’d indicated toward the specialist who’d bounded out from behind the trash can.

“Let’s move,” Coulson added suddenly, and the three agents at the table sprung up and out behind Ward. May and Coulson were weighed down with weaponry, but Skye was able to catch up almost with Ward, who was only a few steps behind the man they’d been tracking.

The black bag that the man held bounced in his hand, swinging forward and backward with all the urgency as the person carrying it had. Ward reached out for it, but just as he did, the man shoved through the open glass doors and out into the streets.

Right into the van that FitzSimmons were driving.

Skye and Ward followed at once, but their impact inside the bus slammed the doors shut before May and Coulson could even make it to the door. The two agents had pulled out their guns; while Coulson kept his trained on the van, May glanced around to check for civilians and any other threats they might need to neutralize.

Inside the bus, Ward and the Italian man he’d been following wrestled for the bag. Skye pressed herself against the back door to keep away, while Fitz and Simmons ducked low in the front seat, him throwing his arms over her and pressing her to the ground.

With an alarming tug, Ward succeeded in extracting the bag from the man. With the force, he knocked the bag against the wall, and it split; from it, a metal cylinder spilled out and hit the ground. Red lights flashed, and Ward only managed an, “Oh-“ before the entire cylinder beamed red and a sudden light was emitted.

 

Outside the van, May and Coulson watched in shock as a red beam sprung out from the bus, dissipating into the air just outside of it. “Get the doors open!” Coulson ordered, and May finally pulled them open with a yank after checking to make sure that no civilians nearby were watching.

Inside sat three babies.

Coulson narrowed his dark eyes. “What the hell? Where are our agents?”

May was quicker to understand. She gingerly reached down and poked one of the baby boys in the stomach, noticing the shock of dark hair that fanned out form his face. “That’s Ward,” she realized aloud.

“That’s not Ward, that is a _child_ coming out of Ward’s suit, it’s not actually – _oh_ ,” Coulson realized at last.

“Is that Bernolli?” May asked, noticing a tanned baby rolling along in a white suit on the other end of the van.

“That’s what he was wearing,” Coulson realized grimly.

“What are we going to do with a van full of babies?” May asked. “Is there anyway to get our agents back?”

“I need to call base,” Coulson decided, pulling out his phone. Dialing the number, he motioned back to the van. “May, watch them.”

“Why? They’re not going anywhere?”

“They might… I don’t know, they might roll out of the van or soil themselves,” Coulson replied, looking uncomfortable.

From the front of  the bus, a small, trumpet-like noise sounded, and May wrinkled her nose as baby Fitz climbed over the seat, all curls and rosy cheeks, laughing. “You’re changing the diapers,” she murmured as her partner turned away.

The voice that picked up at the Hub caused Coulson to groan internally. “Tori?”

“What is it, Coulson?” the woman replied over the phone, sounding as if she had a million other things to do. He was glad at least that he was part of the few that was able to call her by her nickname; if anyone else tried, they usually ended up breathing through their liver for the next few months.

“We’ve got a situation.” Coulson chanced a glance back at the van and May, who was trying to herd a rolling baby Ward from squishing Skye, who was sitting in a corner with her fist in her mouth.

“If Fitz’s allergies are flaring up again, just tell him to try medication-“

“It’s not that, Tori. Except for May, my team is made of babies.”

Coulson heard the woman snort from the other side of the phone. “I could have told you that, Phil. Are you looking for replacements or something? Did your agents get soft all of a sudden?”

“No,” Coulson replied, irritated, “I mean that they’re _babies_ , Victoria. As in actual infants. We were tracking Bernolli today, and we think that the 084 he was carrying might have been the cause of what turned him and four of our agents into babies.”

There was silence for a moment, quickly followed by an unidentifiable sound. It took Coulson a minute, but when he did, his eyes widened. “Are you _laughing?”_ he asked incredulously.

Behind him, May turned and glowered at his back as she struggled to keep young Simmons from pulling young Fitz’s curls.

“I’m going to patch you through to Hill,” Hand managed finally before the call was suddenly picked up by the other agent.

“Your agents are infants, Coulson?” Hill asked for clarification.

Coulson resisted rolling his eyes. “ _Yes_ , Maria. It seems to be the work of an 084 that Bernolli had. He’s a baby too. I think he’s soiled his suit.”

“That’s a shame,” Hill replied before adding, “I’m sending you through to Fury.”

The man’s deep voice now resonated through the phone. “Don’t tell me you screwed up.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Coulson groaned. “We had a leak with the 084, or some sort of mishap. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do! May and I have got four of our own agents as infants and Bernolli as the other.”

There was a silence in which (unseen to Coulson) Fury polished his eyepatch with the newest microfiber cloth he’d been given. Once he’d replaced it – obvious to Coulson only by the snapping of the band – he replied, “We’re going to need you to bring them in to the Hub.”

“How?” Coulson asked, gesturing widely even if he knew the director couldn’t see him. “We haven’t got seats for children!”

“Is that your biggest concern, Phil? I’d be a bit more worried about the fact that the 084 has gone and turned your agents into children, and we so far have no idea what to do to turn them back,” Nick’s voice was stone-cold for a moment, and the team leader sighed.

“Alright, we’ll figure it out. We’re not too far from the Hub now, so I’ll see you soon,” he ended the call and turned around to see May struggling to separate Skye and Fitz, who were tugging at each other.

“We’re going to the Hub?” May questioned as he approached.

“Yes. I’m driving,” Coulson replied, getting into the front seat of the car and carefully lowering Simmons – who’d been gnawing at her foot in the passenger seat – into the open space right behind him.

“What do you expect me to do with these five?” May gestured helplessly to the motley arrangement of children in front of her.

“I don’t know, strap them in or something,” Coulson replied unhelpfully, starting the engine.

May muttered something that sounded a lot like a death threat before stepping into the van and snapping the doors shut behind her. Rummaging in one of the side panels, she extracted a roll of duct tape before emptying out several of the barrels they used for their equipment. Fitz and Simmons would be furious later, but that was at the bottom of her priorities.

“Don’t tell me that you’re-“ Coulson began to groan, but May fixed him with her best glare before grabbing hold of baby Bernolli and shoving him into a crate, taping him down so that he wouldn’t move. She proceeded to do the same with the rest, although she held young Fitz at arm’s length as she strapped him down.

Nodding at Coulson, he started off driving too fast. May bumped her head on the ceiling and Skye cried out. “Go slower,” she ordered her partner, and he obligingly slowed down.

The drive to the Hub took an hour when it normally would have taken half an hour. Simmons constantly looked as if she were about to throw up, and Ward had made quite a mess of himself in his crate. May was just itching to pitch herself out of the nearest window – or throw one of the crates instead.

 _Calm down, May. This will all be over soon_ , she tried to reassure herself, rubbing her temples before jumping as Fitz let out an ear-piercing scream as Coulson rounded the van around a turn.

When they finally got to the Hub, several agents were milling about outside in preparation for them. They were all grinning at the misfortune of their coworkers – at least, until May opened the back doors of the van and began handing them crates one by one.

When all the infants had been unloaded, all the agents proceeded inside. Fury stood at the control center, glaring at the newcomers through his one good eye.

“Explain _this_ ,” he growled, pointing at the crates.

Coulson had wrapped the cylinder of the 084 in what looked like either Fitz or Simmons’s discarded sweater (they wore similar clothes, he wasn’t able to tell the difference). “We saw a red flash from outside the van, but by the time we’d opened the doors, they were all infants and the lights had stopped flashing.”

One of the agents in a biohazard suit bustled by and took the cylinder, leaving the sweater in Coulson’s arms as she rushed off. Fury continued to glare at him.

“What do you want me to say, Nick?” Phil demanded at last.

Fury said nothing for a moment, but finally relented. “We’re taking Bernolli in for testing. Or questioning. Or scientific research. In the meantime, your four are going to have to go to the lab so that the scientists can study them.”

And so the crates were taken away, and May and Coulson were forced to sit outside the control room. Several agents passed by, laughing, but all were silence with one glance from the Asian woman who sat silently.

After about an hour or two, a scientist came to them. “We don’t entirely know what’s wrong with your team,” she confessed, twisting her goggles in front of her. “But it’s some sort of toxin that’s entered their system. It’ll wear off, but slowly, so they won’t properly get their memories back until they’ve all reached adulthood. I’d give it a few weeks.”

“Weeks?” Coulson replied, his throat dry.

The young woman nodded sadly.

Fury now approached them, leaving the control room. “We’ll be taking Bernolli until the effects wear off and he’s grown again,” he informed them. “But we need you two to take care of your own team. It just so happens anyway that I need a small team working undercover as a family to set up residence in Atlanta.”

May groaned.

“I was going to send Barton and Romanoff, but I think it would work better with you,” Fury added. “Just take your four agents to the house in Atlanta and pretend that they’re your children. Your left-side neighbor is supposed to be an organizer of Centipede, so you’ll be able to keep an eye on him.”

“We don’t know how to deal with children, Nick,” Coulson sighed. “We couldn’t even figure out how to drive here with them.”

“The girl with the dark brown hair screamed quite a lot when we removed the duct tape,” the scientist added helpfully. Phil gave her a second glance, having forgotten her presence.

“The scientist tells me that your teammates will age approximately a year each day, so you won’t have to deal with babies for too long,” Fury revealed. “Are you two ready?”

Coulson and May exchanged a look.

“It’s settled,” Fury decided.

An hour later, the pair stood behind a set of two double prams, Skye and Simmons sitting in one while Fitz and Ward had been placed in the other. They were staring in shock at the car in front of them.

“A mini-van,” May said at last.

“I want Lola,” Coulson said immediately. From the pram in front of him, Skye gave a hiccup as if she were about to throw up, and he thought better of his request. “Never mind, this will do.”

The two agents loaded their ‘children’ into car seats and packed the belongings the scientists had packed for them.

Fury stood by the doors. “Don’t forget to keep an eye on your neighbor. His name is Anthony Lewis, and he’s quite capable in combat.”

“Got it,” May replied as she got into the passenger seat.

“We’ll keep you updated on any new developments here,” Fury promised.

“Excellent,” Coulson replied, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“One last thing,” Fury called as the two began driving away, “Keep your agents from flirting with each other! You don’t want to have to give them “The Talk”.”

Coulson and May exchanged simultaneous looks of dread as they drove off.


	2. Expression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson and May, or "Patrick and Marian Clements", arrive at the undercover home in Atlanta and meet their Centipede director of a neighbor.
> 
> Meanwhile, Coulson has second thoughts about his suit, Fitz creates havoc, and no one sleeps through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Especially after that finale, I decided we needed a bit of fluffy sort of AU, so enjoy the next chapter!

Coulson pulled up into a driveway as May checked the house number written on the file that Fury had given them. “It’s the right one,” she confirmed, glancing out through her sunglasses at the golden numerals printed on the mailbox. “Number 084.”

“He did this on purpose,” Coulson replied as he pulled his keys out before glancing behind them at the four infants.

Simmons and Ward were sitting in the front two seats, while Skye and Fitz sat in the back two. Both the young scientists were asleep peacefully – Jemma with her mouth open as a stream of drool trickled down her cheek – but the other two were awake. Skye was contently sucking on her thumb, and Ward was trying to pull off the shoes that May had forced onto his feet several hours before.

“They won’t be so young for long,” May added, catching Coulson’s look of panic. “They age a year a day, remember?”

“Yeah, so tomorrow, they’ll be just about two.” Coulson sighed.

“At least they’ll be able to talk,” May pointed out, trying for optimism.

“Then our problem will be getting them to shut up,” Coulson observed as he stepped out of the car, shutting the door behind him. He pulled on the handle of the minivan, unaccustomed to it as it slowly slid open, leaving him beside sleeping Simmons.

May took the other side, opening the door and climbing toward the back to pull out Skye and Fitz. She seized them in each of her arms as Coulson picked up Ward and Simmons.

Fitz woke up as soon as May unbuckled the belt on his seat, and for a moment, he blinked at her through blue eyes. The next moment, he let out a screech, and the woman nearly dropped both him and Skye.

Coulson winced. “Why’d you make him cry?”

“I didn’t do it intentionally,” May replied as she left from the van, rocking Fitz on one hip while he continued bawling.

“Is he hungry?” Coulson questioned, hefting up Ward and Simmons.

“He needs a diaper change,” May noted, professionally refraining from wrinkling her nose at the foul odor that seemed to be radiating from the Scottish baby’s rear end. “Wasn’t he just changed?”

Coulson was about to reply when the man from the house to their left burst out in a panic. “Is everyone alright?” he asked, approaching the “family”. As soon as he noticed the children that the agents held, however, he sighed in relief. “I thought someone was hurt.”

At once, both Coulson and May had entered undercover mode; their motions were smooth and coordinated, their features beaming instead of sullen as they seamlessly slipped into the alter ego.

“Oh, you’re our new neighbor?” May asked, rocking Fitz on her hip as he slowly stopped screeching and instead transitioned into a much quieter whimper.

“That’s right. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Anthony Lewis, and I live in 085.” The man jerked a hand backward to indicate the quaint townhouse nestled just beside theirs, the bushes in front of it trimmed, the flower garden neat. May had a difficult time trying to imagine him as a Centipede director.

“I’m Patrick Clements, and this is my wife, Marian,” Coulson introduced himself and May, giving her only the briefest of looks as he spoke the names that they’d decided on inside the van. As soon as SHIELD heard what they were calling themselves, all the paperwork in order to keep up the undercover act would be filed under their aliases.

“I would shake your hands, but,” Anthony motioned helplessly to the infants that they both held. “Lots of kids, huh? Are they all yours?”

“Yes,” May confirmed, rocking Fitz on her hip while Skye remained quiet and content.

“They’re rather close in age,” Anthony observed.

“Well, she is biologically ours,” Coulson inclined his head toward Skye, the one who could best pass off for any offspring that Coulson and May could have, “But the other three are adopted.”

“Ah.” Anthony seemed more willing to believe this turn of events more.

Just then, Fitz let out another wail and grabbed May’s jacket, and she shot their new neighbor a sunny smile. “This one needs a diaper change, so we’d better head in, but it was nice meeting you.”

Bidding goodbye to their new neighbor, the ‘couple’ proceeded indoors. As soon as they were inside (SHIELD, thankfully, had had the foresight to already move everything and stock the house by the time they’d gotten in), the agents looked at each other.

“Not secure yet,” Coulson muttered from between clenched teeth.

So instead, May placed Skye into a playpen and dragged Fitz over toward the kitchen table.

“You can’t change him there,” Coulson told her, scandalized. “We’re going to use that table to _eat_ on!”

May rolled her eyes, but obligingly carried him to the bathroom upstairs, picking up the diaper bag that Coulson had brought in from their van as soon as he’d settled Ward and Simmons into the playpen as well.

Coulson followed, standing in the doorway. May turned. “What are you standing there for?” she inquired.

“I wanted to make sure that everything was alright with you and the diapers,” Coulson replied with a shrug.

May snorted. “I got this set up for you. I need to head back down and keep an eye on the others, as well as make a few last checks.” The last few words were carefully intoned, the look in her eyes indicating to Coulson that she was ready to set up safety precautions.

Coulson balked. “You want me to change Fitz – er, Leo’s diaper?” he asked in shock.

“I’m expecting you to,” May informed him as she passed him the bag, heading back downstairs.

Behind her, Coulson called back something that sounded like, _“Don’t I get to wear a biohazard suit with all this smell?”_ May didn’t pay him any attention as she returned to the living room to find the other three infant agents occupying themselves inside their playpen. Perfect.

Closing the curtains, the Asian woman immediately pulled out a small black box from her pocket and extracted the headphones that went along with it. Pulling them onto her head, the woman turned in a slow circle, holding the box out inside of her that periodically let out beeps in second intervals.

After doing a thorough sweep of the house for any bugging or security equipment, May returned to the upstairs bathroom, where Coulson had _finally_ figured out how to change Fitz’s diaper, somehow. “It’s clean,” she informed him.

Coulson grinned in pride. “I know. I took extra care to make sure that I used baby wipes-“

“I’m talking about the house and bugging equipment,” May interrupted.

“Oh.” Coulson’s face fell.

“Though Fitz does look less grimy,” May observed, deciding to throw her partner a bone, and he smiled appreciatively at the now-quiet child.

The pair returned downstairs, May glancing at the time. “We fed them about two hours ago, so it’s time to get started,” she informed him.

Coulson groaned, “ _Again?_ ”

“They’re children, Phil, they’re going to eat a lot,” May replied with a roll of her eyes as she moved to the playpen. Skye and Simmons were pulling at each other, and she was forced to separate them, picking up Skye while Coulson picked up Simmons.

Thankfully, the SHIELD team that had set up the house had left no stone unturned; there were high chairs in the kitchen, four of them in a row, and the two agents went to work setting up their ‘children’ in them; Fitz beside Simmons beside Ward beside Skye.

“Now what?”

“Phil, do you expect me to have all the answers?” May huffed, rummaging through the diaper bag and pulling out a book on child care. She flipped through it, read a paragraph, and then closed it. “Baby cereal. Now.”

Coulson followed her orders obligingly, not even protesting that _he_ was the leader when May when into control mode (and it totally wasn’t because he found it hot – nope, clearly that wasn’t the _only_ explanation, right?).

He pulled a box out from one of the cabinets and began preparing it following the directions on the back of the box. As good as the agent was at giving orders, he was even better at following them; soon, a large pot of warm baby cereal sat on the counter, and he quickly divided it into four servings.

The agents each picked up a bowl and studied the babies. The four children stared back at them.

“Let’s go,” Coulson declared.

They started with Simmons and Ward in the middle, mostly because they’d been the best behaved and they suspected that the other two agents would give them more trouble. Unfortunately, these two weren’t as well behaved as they’d expected them to be.

Simmons spit the cereal at Coulson, lips pouting in disgust, while beside her, Ward had decided to stick his hand into the bowl that May was holding and then spread it all over his hair (and a bit of hers).

“Come on, just open your mouth,” Coulson wheedled Simmons, but her mouth remained firmly closed. “Jemma,” he warned, using her first name, but she didn’t move. He sighed and turned to May. “She was a lot more obedient as an adult.”

“Ward was just as messy, but I preferred it when he was adult because usually it was blood that he smeared everywhere,” May replied, hastily scooping the cereal from the bowl and spooning it into Ward’s mouth.

Simmons turned out to be quite the challenge to feed; Coulson didn’t remember her being a picky eater on the Bus, but then again, he didn’t think that she ate all that much on the plane. Most of the time, he remembered seeing Fitz finishing up her sandwiches when she was full. Even so, he wheedled her for a good half an hour to get her to eat. In the mean time, May had fed the other three, who turned out to be less picky but just as messy as Ward – by the end, May was covered in baby cereal.

“They are in _so_ much trouble when they grow up,” May grumbled.

Coulson had finally finished feeding the young biochemist. “Now what do we do?”

May flipped through another few pages of the book. “We’ve got to bathe them and put them to bed. It’s nearly time, anyway,” she added with a glance at the darkening sky beyond their window.

“Then we can get to business,” Coulson agreed.

May didn’t reply and merely picked up Ward and Skye. She motioned for Coulson to take the other two, and he looked down in dismay at himself.

“What?” May questioned as she flipped her hair to the back of her head so that Ward couldn’t keep pulling it.

“The suit,” Coulson sighed. “I don’t want Fitz getting cereal all over me.”

May let out a noise that sounded rather like a snort, and the team leader stared at her incredulously. “You’re supposed to be an accountant, I’m sure that we can get you other suits,” she replied, hefting the infants and starting upstairs.

“None will be as good as this one, though,” Coulson sighed before finally steeling himself. He picked up Simmons first (because while she was a fussy eater, in all other aspects she was a quite calm baby) and then Fitz next, cringing as the baby wiped his mouth all over the shoulder of the lovely suit.

He started up the steps, back into the bathroom where he’d changed Fitz. May was already in there,  having disposed of Skye and Ward’s clothes. She was filling a bucket in the bathtub with water as her partner entered, and didn’t even look up as she heard him. “Throw out their clothes,” she ordered.

“Can’t we wash them?” Coulson asked, but he glanced at the cereal that had been smeared into the infants’ clothes and sighed in answer, beginning to peel off the onesies.

May had Skye on her lap and was running the warm water over the baby’s legs. Skye began to cry again, but calmed when she noticed the warmth of the water, letting May bathe her while she splashed. Soon May was not only covered in cereal but also drenched. Ward and Simmons were a bit easier, as they were growing tired and let May bathe them without protest. Fitz, on the other hand, struggled,  his face red.

The two agents functioned as a cohesive unit, like a well-oiled machine. They were all too comfortable with the other’s actions to speak while they worked. Instead, May handed him a wet but clean child, and Coulson dried and changed them before putting them in their cribs.

Finally, the four had been put into their cribs (the girls in the pink nursery, the boys in the blue one), and the two adults were exhausted.

“My suit,” Coulson managed at last as he sprawled over the edge of the bathtub, looking down at the drenched and cereal covered suit he knew he’d needed to get rid of.

May rolled her eyes but said nothing, only getting to her feet and numbly turning on the shower. Coulson grabbed a towel and headed for the other bathroom, and soon the two were clean and dry again, wearing the pajamas provided for them.

Back on the Bus, no one really knew what May and Coulson wore to sleep other than these two. May seemed to never sleep, it seemed, and whenever one of the younger agents went to wake her, they always found her dressed in her standard black at the door of her bunk as soon as she knocked. Coulson, they had joked, slept in his suits, because that was all they ever saw them in.

No one had realized that Coulson loved wearing pants with Captain America’s shield or that May slept in a tank top and shorts.

That was exactly what they wore now – Nick knew too much about their intricacies as well. They had once been a part of his team, after all, the way that the infant agents were part of Coulson’s. Thus they reached the next hurdle; sleeping arrangements.

Both stared at the king-sized bed in the master bedroom.

“Well, we are supposed to be a married couple,” May remarked after several seconds.

Coulson looked faintly red, although his partner pretended not to notice. “I could sleep on the couch downstairs, or take a sleeping bag into one of the nurseries?” he suggested.

“There’s no need,” May replied calmly, pulling the sheets back on one side of the bed while Coulson hesitantly did the same on the other. There were baby monitors on the night stands; the one that transmitted the sounds from the boys’ nursery beside May, the other one beside Coulson.

Perhaps it was the fact that they were so in sync and comfortable with each other that Coulson didn’t feel strange at all sleeping beside her. It was a natural instinct; he could recall old missions in which they’d had to pass off as married, undercover operations where they masqueraded as lovers – but as she turned restlessly on her side of the bed, he tried to forget them and concentrate on getting some rest.

His goal didn’t work out great.

Skye was the first to screech after an hour, and seeing as Coulson was nearest to the monitor, he went up to check on her. All she needed was a diaper change, and then it was back to bed, until the next hour, when Simmons began bawling. What she wanted was a bottle of milk, and after mixing the formula and watching her drink from the bottle, Coulson realized that she was only a picky eater, not drinker.

The next time that the monitors went off, it was both Fitz and Ward. May was now left to deal with them, and rocked them in each hand as they slowly settled to sleep. Meanwhile, Coulson had to wake up and check on the girls again when he heard a strange noise from the monitor, only to discover that Skye had vomited all over herself. He groaned as he reluctantly changed her.

May and Coulson returned to the room at the same time, collapsing on opposite sides of the bed.

“We’re never going to sleep,” Coulson sighed.

“Just a few more hours until they’re old enough to sleep through the night,” May reminded him.

There was a pause, and then Coulson added, “I’m never having children.”

May’s chuckle confused him for a moment before she returned, “You already did.”


End file.
